


Deceit

by germanic



Category: Star Wars: Republic Commando Series - Karen Traviss
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-22
Updated: 2013-06-22
Packaged: 2017-12-15 18:21:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/852608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/germanic/pseuds/germanic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They are far more different than alike.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deceit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kradeelav](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kradeelav/gifts).



There is a subtlety to what he does. He is unlike the magician that Skirata is--focus on this hand while the other deceives--seeing no reason to be two-faced, contained within a tank of his own lies. That does not mean he is not mysterious in his own right. Yet, with the right decipher, he is readable. He does not show everything, does not tell his life story at every provided opportunity. He is merely tactful.

Inquires are made about his past, some blatant questions, others attempt at masking their purpose. They range from hinting to what he did before he joined the Mandalorians to asking where he was born and what it was like there.

The questions never receive an answer, merely one eyebrow raised, a look of skepticism crossing his features.

When it is done in Skirata's presence, the other man bats it off. It is made into humor. Stinging humor. Skirata has no quarrels with dehumanizing Vau, making him seem something almost out of lore. Of course, such was the magician's task to distract, to command the show.

Skirata knew the truth in parts, half-told and half-mumbled realities that Vau had told to him through the years that they had been in each other's company. Then there were the observations that Skirata had gathered. For to make any convincing lie, one had to understand the truth well-enough.

In private they can speak, be in some kind of confidence with each other, but in public, the act remains and Skirata took the attention from Vau, removing him from the focus of those around who sought to understand the man who spoke with clarity and carefully structured sentences.

It is not deceit, rather, his choosing to tell nothing of a misery that had been his to endure during childhood. And of his years of drifting, neither the son of a count nor the apprentice of a Mandalorian.

Years of starvation--what little funds were to be had all funneled into weapons and travel--and of hate that had bled from him with time, draining him of the desire for vengeance, leaving him merely wishing for justice. The years of sleeping where he could, hours at a time, before completing an assignment. Military training had proved applicable to bounty work, instilling the understanding of how to be effective, efficient, self-reliant.

These he did not speak of, delicately choosing words that avoided the subject matter. Never did he indicate past, say words like  _familiar_  and  _remember_. Those merely opened conversations, him having cast the first stone.

And here he does the same thing. Skirata muses, drifting back into past memories--altered, Vau notes--always the seemingly honest one, while as the seemingly deceitful one he says nothing.

In this moment, he is the magician's assistant. Aiding in the distraction though he never lies. For that is their role, the honest helper, the one who trusts the magician--and therefore so should the audience--and is game to participate in their games. Skirata has always been good at direction, being the leader.

_And for my next act..._

Skirata is the one who takes action. Without a moment's notice, he adopted the clones, made them his sons. Whereas, Vau did not. Vau did not adopt the boys he saw raised into soldiers, did not see a blurred line like Skirata did. Soldiers were soldiers. They were not his own, not his boys, not his children.

Vau sees the way that some of Delta look at the Nulls, sees the bitterness in their eyes that these men no different than them should be someone's sons when they are nothing.

_I will make my assistant into the villain._


End file.
